This is Illyria, lady.

[substitute]

Gertrude Stein said about Ezra Pound that "He is a village explainer. Which is fine, if you're a village."

I, too, am a Village Explainer. I got it from my father. I rediscovered this last night when I found myself giving the 15 minute history of 19th Century American Religious Movements to someone and thought "Why am I doing this? How do I know this?"

My uncle Richard told me once that it's a miracle that I escaped the academic world. He should know; he spent a career in a love/hate relationship with being an art professor.

But it's true. If I could spend an entire life learning things in detail and then explaining them to other people, I'd be happy. I just hated academia because it was too much learning about things I didn't care about and then explaining them to people who had no interest, which is a lifeless task. If my spiritual life wasn't such a minefield, I might have become a pastor. If it paid at all, I might have become a computer trainer.

So by default I've found my true calling. I'm a dilettante, amateur, flâneur, habitué de café, freelance village explainer. Maybe this is a decent way to grow old.

Comments

[dizzyspells.livejournal.com]

This title is synonymous with 'Jack of All Trades'. I've often been described in this same light. It has both its merits and its pitfalls in that even people who want and desire to know things don't always want to be inundated with information. But when encyclopedic knowledge is sought, often the same people are very grateful. What a catch 22, eh?

[trinx.livejournal.com]

to add a bit to this:

jack of all trades, master of none.

(something i've been called on more than one occassion..)

[frobisher.livejournal.com]

I am yet another. I used to get phone calls in college to help settle Trivial Pursuit arguments.

My name, however, is not Jack.